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NEW REPORT: Platform Work and the Care Economy
By Dr. Michael Mandel
PPI's Vice President and Chief Economist
Welcome to the Care Economy, a term that is being used much more frequently these days. America’s aging population means that many workers are spending more hours than ever taking care of older parents. At the same time, the time burden of raising children has not diminished. That means roughly 36% of the working-age population is engaged in providing unpaid care on any given day, according to the annual American Time Use Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (ATUS).
Overall, if Americans were paid $15 per hour for their unpaid caregiving labor, then the total value of the time spent on unpaid care would be $980 billion per year.
The nature of work in America, though, means that unpaid care is more stressful than it needs to be. In an ideal world, many people with caregiving responsibilities would search out part-time positions that fit their specific situations. But conventional part-time employment tends to offer much lower hourly pay than comparable full-time positions and, it turns out, much less flexibility. Therefore, caregivers are forced to either (1) accept low paying and inflexible parttime jobs; (2) take conventional full-time jobs, with all the stress of combining work and unpaid care responsibilities; or (3) drop out of the paid workforce completely. Notably, this difficult decision — and the burden of unpaid care in general — falls mainly on women. We estimate that the size of the caregiving gender gap can be valued at $325 billion per year.
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A New Way for America to Re-Embrace Apprenticeship
By Taylor Maag
PPI's Director of Workforce Development Policy
For Medium
Apprenticeship is engrained in America’s history — three of our Founding Fathers started their careers as apprentices. George Washington, for example, apprenticed as a land surveyor. Yet even with this 250-year runway, apprenticeships have not taken off in the United States as they have in other advanced nations.
Our country has about 500,000 registered apprenticeships today, mostly in traditional sectors such as building trades and heavy industry. As a share of their labor force, Great Britain, Australia, and Germany have roughly 10 times more.
It is puzzling that the U.S. hasn’t followed its peers in scaling up apprenticeship, a training model that is also a job, allowing people to work and earn while they are learning the critical skills necessary for good jobs and careers. It’s an especially relevant model now, when most U.S. jobs require at least some postsecondary education and training, and when employers, even in our tight labor market, report a serious shortage of skilled workers in their fields.
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New from COP27
What a Republican House means for energy, ft. Paul Bledsoe, Senior Advisor for the Progressive Policy Institute
⮕ E&E News
COP27 Latest: Talks Head for Overtime After EU Offers Compromise, ft. Paul Bledsoe, Senior Advisor for the Progressive Policy Institute
⮕ Bloomberg News
World still ‘on brink of climate catastrophe’ after Cop27 deal, ft. Paul Bledsoe, Senior Advisor for the Progressive Policy Institute
⮕ Guardian
ICYMI: COP27: A global methane agreement can prevent climate catastrophe, ft. Paul Bledsoe, Senior Advisor for the Progressive Policy Institute
⮕ The Hill
ICYMI: Biden’s Message on Climate Might Not Be the One the World Wants, ft. Paul Bledsoe, Senior Advisor for the Progressive Policy Institute
⮕ The New York Times
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ICYMI: The 2022 Midterms: Key Lessons and Course Corrections
Featuring Rep. Cheri Bustos
The dust hasn't settled on Tuesday's midterm elections, but discussions about the 2024 cycle have already started.
That's why on Tuesday, November 15th, the Progressive Policy Institute hosted a post-election event to discuss what message voters delivered in the midterm elections and its implications for party leaders as they look ahead. Please join us to hear from political leaders, campaign strategists, and policy experts on the lessons we learned and how the center-left can best position itself for the 2024 election cycle.
Panel:
Rep. Cheri Bustos (IL-17), U.S. House of Representatives
Ruy Teixeira, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Elaine Kamarck, Director of the Center for Effective Public Management, Brookings Institution
Moderated by:
Will Marshall, President, Progressive Policy Institute
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ICYMI: Build on this, Democrats: How the party can capitalize on Republicans’ midterm fizzle
By Will Marshall
PPI's President
Last week’s delightfully abnormal midterm elections left Democrats elated and Republicans wondering how they failed to parlay President Biden’s dismal approval ratings and public consternation over soaring prices into big political gains.
The answer has three overlapping parts: a deeply unpopular stance on abortion, a bad habit of indulging anti-democratic extremism, and a raft of terrible candidates — all of which Republicans inflicted upon themselves. But for Democrats and Biden, dissecting the results and capitalizing on them are two very different matters. To hear voters’ 2022 message and win over many more in 2024, the party must decisively reoccupy the center, with pragmatic solutions that speak to voters’ everyday concerns.
As it happens, most voters (31%) did say inflation was the issue
that mattered most to them. But contrary to the media’s claims that abortion was no longer a salient issue, it came in a close second (27%), followed by crime, guns and immigration. Those who chose abortion overwhelmingly backed Democratic candidates.
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RADICALLY PRAGMATIC:
Mosaic Moment: Transatlantic Takeaways
Last month, the Progressive Policy Institute hosted an established group of 12 women in tech and workforce development policy, traveling to London, Brussels and Berlin to meet with political leaders, policy experts and thought-leaders across Europe. On this episode of the Mosaic Moment, host and program director, Jasmine Stoughton, asks what one transatlantic policy was most interesting and why.
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THE NEOLIBERAL PODCAST:
How do we get an Abundance Agenda? ft. Derek Thompson & Suraj Patel
What is the Abundance Agenda and how do we get there? Atlantic writer and author Derek Thompson and former Congressional candidate Suraj Patel join the show to discuss how to build an abundant society.
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